Saturday, 2 October 2010

Climate Change: Kill a few to save the rest

You couldn't make this stuff up, really.

"Doing nothing about climate change is still a fairly common affliction, even in this day and age. What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody's existence on this planet? Clearly we don't really think they should be blown up, that's just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?" jokes 10:10 founder and Age of Stupid film maker Franny Armstrong.

But why take such a risk of upsetting or alienating people, I ask her: "Because we have got about four years to stabilise global emissions and we are not anywhere near doing that. All our lives are at threat and if that's not worth jumping up and down about, I don't know what is."

"We 'killed' five people to make No Pressure – a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change," she adds. Read more (and watch the video)

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4 comments:

What gets me is that there's "no pressure" and "it's OK" coming out of the person before the person pushes the red button - seems like lots of pressure, but we'll not tell you about these sticks we have lined up, but rather act friendly before hitting you with them.

Now I know it's meant to be comedic (or something - they got a comedy guy to make it), but it's, at best, bizarre and difficult to work out what they are trying to say. At worst, it's a "join us or we'll kill you while telling you it's OK not to join us".

10:10 just sounds like such a legalistic, Pharisaic religious movement, but then neo-enviromentalism is all for the hairshirts, the eschatological fear of climate apocalypse (and hope of avoiding that), the guilt trips for not getting a Prius/getting a Prius (depending on whether you looked at the bigger picture or not). There's even the carbon offsetting indulgences racket!

Does the 300,000 people who die each year from climate change include the ones who die because we pour money into King Cnut efforts to stop climate change, rather than dealing with lack of access to clean water, or stopping children dying preventable deaths from diseases which are no problem in the West? I doubt it, the figures would be much higher if they were. Anyway, these deaths are weather-related (too early to tell if it's due to the climate changing, especially through CO2, or it's just an above-average few years which will be followed by a below-average few years), and don't take into account a base rate of weather-related deaths. How many of these weather-related deaths could be avoided if we sent more aid to help people cope with floods and famine, rather than trying to stop floods and famine from happening more often in 30 years time?

I cannot agree more with Si Hollett. The rational behind those in 10:10 is probably very well intentioned, but is wholly misplaced. From any perspective, talking about 4 years is just scaremongering and utterly devoid of fact. The claim about 300,000 deaths is testament to how little authorities really care about human life, as evidenced by the lack of adequate preparation, planning or adaptation.

What I fear most however, is that the AGW scaremongerers, rather than addressing human suffering due to (lack of preparation for/response to) natural climate events, will shout ever louder that we must obey them in all things and demand we believe that theirs is the only way to rescue mankind. If that isn't trying to be God, what else is it?

My second fear is that Churches will blindly adopt the IPCC line and develop a climate change 'creed' from it, regardless of both how far removed from the science it is and the utterly non-scientific 'consensus' they claim (science is never settled), or the distinctly unsavoury way those pushing the AGW agenda have and are behaving. This is exactly what the Methodist church seems to be in the process of doing. Again, this is putting mans' 'wisdom' above God's.

My comfort however, is knowing that God designed the earth to be 'good' for us, and will not allow our actions to decide when he will bring this age to a close.

It is interesting that China is about push out more Co2 in the next few years that we have saved through all the vain attempts of this law and that. It is also about to import gas from Turkmanistan through a 2000km pipe- line. They certainly are not trying to go green. Are they all climate change denyers? Try blowing up the population of China! What a Stalinistic approach to bringing peace on earth. The prophet Isaiah tells us, 'I have made the earth, and created man upon it; it is I, my hands that have streached out the heavens...For thus says the Lord who created the heavens ( he Is God), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it in chaos, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord and there is no other. Is 45. God has given the resources that are in the earth's crust in his providence to be used and indeed not abused. But when man thinks he is in charge of the planet and alone responsible for its future we have idolatry, the consequence will be totalitarianism. When we loose the doctrines of God's grace and salvation through Christ, we have a legalistic tick-box, self-righteous society, intolerant of any one who thinks differently and is bold enough to declare it.